Broken Barrel Small Batch Bourbon

Frank Dobbin -

BOTTLE DETAILS

  • DISTILLER: Produced by Broken Barrel Whiskey  but “Distilled in Owensboro Kentucky” (Green River Distillery)
  • MASH BILL: 70% Corn | 21% Rye | 9% Malted Barley
  • OAK BILL: 40% French Oak Staves | 40% Ex-Bourbon Cask Staves | 20% Sherry Cask Staves
  • AGE: A minimum of 2 years
  • YEAR: 2022
  • PROOF: 95 (47.5% ABV)
  • MSRP: $35

FRANK'S NOTES

SHARE WITH: Someone with a tolerance for young bourbon and a heavy oak presence.

WORTH THE PRICE: No. It’s well priced but the experience fails to deliver.

BOTTLE, BAR OR BUST: Given the fact that Broken Barrel has more well-rounded offerings both on the higher and lower shelf, this one is a bust.

OVERALL: Broken Barrel’s 95 proof straight bourbon continues the trend set by their 88 proof California Oak expression in that it has a nice blend of unexpected flavors in concert with classic bourbon notes. Where it deviates from the trend, however, is that unlike its lower proof sibling these flavors fail to harmonize. It manages to give away its youth while also being over-oaked. A sip concludes with a dry finish which detracts from the brown sugar, cinnamon bun and red apple skin flavors that underlie the experience.

While Broken Barrel seems to have found a unique and potentially rewarding way of “infusing” flavor into their youthful distillate (a nod to their parent company, Infuse Spirits, and its raison d'être) by adding various staves, it also carries the risk of going too far. For this expression the oak bill detracts from the experience nearly as much as it adds to the flavor profile. The resultant bumpy ride is one that ultimately I would pass on revisiting until either their whiskey ages further or they find a way to curb the woody notes those additional staves impart.

BRAND NOTES

Broken Barrel Small Batch Bourbon

Broken Barrel Bourbon features a unique blend of corn, rye, and barley that makes it perfectly balanced to infuse. We partnered with an incredible world-class Kentucky Bourbon distillery to select the finest bourbon base for our products. The bourbon is aged a minimum of two years to be called a Kentucky Straight Bourbon, which also ensures a specific quality we're looking for before incorporate our Oak Bill™.

After a minimum of two years in new charred oak barrels, the bourbon is dumped to steel tanks, where each batch of Broken Barrel is hit with new French oak staves, ex-bourbon barrel staves, and a blend of ex-sherry cask staves.

Rich, complex, layered and beyond beautiful, Broken Barrel boldly goes where other whiskies won’t - and we wouldn’t have it any other way.